Gone to Soldiers (50 page)

By the third day in the Black Pit, Duvey was feeling brisk. After heavy seas and being pounded like that, he was glad just to stand upright with a deck under his feet. This ship was a sturdy one. Some of the others had reported damage, and
The Witherington
had to hove to with low fuel and storm damage. A newer destroyer was on the way to catching them, out of St. John's, where it had been worked on after the last crossing and the last storm. Tanks and half-tracks were safer cargo than all those tons of fuel in a tanker just waiting to mount into a torch. He had always managed to stay off the ammo ships; they scared him worse than the tankers. If oil exploded, it was by accident, but what was ammunition for but to blow up everybody in sight?

No, this was the berth to get, a middle-aged ship built in the twenties and decently kept up, with a smart skipper and officers who knew what they were doing. Sometimes he signed on a ship and knew in the first two hours it was going to be a hellhole, the food rotten, the discipline nervous or too lax to run the ship. He could smell disaster like rat turds. A dirty ship was often a dangerous ship. A guy he knew died when some bozo set off a snowflake rocket by accident, tipping off a U-boat to the convoy's passage, and that was the end of all of them, bye-bye, just because it was a sloppy ship and nothing tidied away in its place.

He went over his gear and dried his socks, worked on a too-stiff zipper. He hadn't sent a postcard to Ruthie because he was still pissed at her. He hadn't meant any harm with the kid. Naomi was too young to fuck and in his mother's house? Did Ruthie think his brains were fried? He was just fooling around with the kid, and why not, when it felt kind of sweet to do it. She was just that age when they ripen weekly and he knew he was the first ever to put a hand on her. She wasn't going to be a beauty, exactly, but she was going to be something special. She had a nice body already and a heart-shaped face like a kitten, big green-brown eyes and that air of being easy and tough at once that only working-class women ever genuinely have, in her cheap and slightly outgrown sweaters and skirts. She wasn't Mama's little girl, the way Ruthie had been.

Okay, she was too young now, and Ruthie was an asshole not to figure out he knew that too. It had been a cute game, playing with her when she came in in the morning, her a little scared but wanting to please too. When he jerked off, he didn't remember the girl he'd met in a bar on Canal Street and shacked up with for two days and the way she'd blown him. What he remembered was how much fun it had been to push the kid a little further, never knowing just how far she would go or what would happen, knowing nothing could or should, but still enjoying that funny power. The way she would look at him, as if puzzled at what he was doing.

U-653 was on its way back to France for engine repairs, away from the rest of its pack and picket line. The convoy had changed course northwards. U-653 was traveling on the surface, since subs could only make way slowly underwater on batteries. The lookout was posted on the conning tower, watching for enemy boats, since in the air gap they expected no planes. The lookout saw the masts of the convoy. U-653 signaled its sighting report home, “Beta Beta BD1491 Geleitzug Kurs 70
.”
The sighting signals were special short messages in a highly compressed code, always beginning with Greek letters. Back in the operations room in the Hotel am Steinplatz, the U-boat command was pleased to alert the nearest Raubgraf boats and those of the Stuermer Group. By early that afternoon they were shadowing the convoy, waiting for dark to attack
.

It was a cold night with the moon laying down a wake of light on the wave crests when it skipped out of the clouds. Duvey came off duty and had a cup of coffee, even though he meant to go right to bed, because he was so cold he wanted something hot and he figured he was too tired for anything to keep him awake. He was standing there with the cup in his mitt when he felt the thud, not in their own boat, but nearby. He followed the others on deck. It was a Norwegian freighter, the
Elin K
. She went down in a matter of minutes, while the snowflake rockets tried to illuminate the U-boats, who had to be on the surface to attack.

The poor old destroyers and the little corvettes went dashing out on contacts, either from their radar or their huffduff—the radio direction-finding equipment they used to pinpoint the position of subs when they radioed sighting or other reports. The U-boat commanders were, fortunately, a talkative lot. Tonight the escorts seemed unable to catch any of the U-boats. They were out there, but nobody knew where. The captain ordered them to sleep in their life preservers.

Mike told him a story about being sunk in the Pacific, attacked by a Jap plane, and floating in an open boat for ten days among basking sharks. The Germans called the coordinated attack of the subs a wolf pack, but he thought of it as a feeding frenzy of sharks. The U-boats looked like sharks to him when he saw them, usually when they were under attack. Otherwise you never saw the sub that got you. Once he caught sight of a periscope and reported it. Then he was not sure whether he had really seen anything, or only a trick of the moonlight and the water.

The moon was setting, two hours later, when he felt that same impact through the water and the ship next to theirs burst into flame. It was maybe two thousand yards away but he could feel the heat on his face when suddenly he fell to his knees. He felt as if a great fist had just slammed him into a wall. His eardrums screeched with pain and his body felt half smashed, as if he had fallen a long ways. Then everything went pitching sharply, violently forward. He grasped the bulkhead in front of him and turned to see that the ship had broken in two. The aft section was upended. No point trying to get to his boat station, no time. He was scrambling up the bow section hand over hand trying to get high enough to jump. They were being sucked under fast. He realized he could not get any higher and so he clambered over the rail and tried to thrust himself through the air as far from the ship as he could.

The breath was knocked out of him as he hit the water, but he kept his life jacket. The little light went on okay. He swam as hard as he could toward the sound of the next ship, to get himself beyond the suction of his own. He could not see over the waves, swimming hand over hand in a rough crawl in the icy, oily water. God, it was cold, it was cold.
Let me make it, let me make it
, he begged. He could feel another explosion in the water and it got bright. The waters pulled him around and down but he fought free. He was still afloat.

He could feel the boilers explode behind and beneath him as his ship sank. Ahead of him he could hear somebody softly cursing and splashing. It was so fucking cold he already couldn't feel his feet. His legs were heavy and pulling him down. He kept struggling forward. Somebody should be launching a boat to pick them up soon, they had to come. The sea was full of drowning men. He bumped against a body buoyed up by its jacket. A keg was floating near him and he held on to it for a moment to rest, but it kept rolling over and thrusting him beneath the waves, so he let it go. Come on, you bastards, come on. Where are you? Are you going to let us die? The fucking ships looked like they were all changing course, and he thought one of them was going to cut right over him. It didn't, it veered off. Still they didn't pick him up. He screamed, swallowing icy salt water, but he knew they couldn't hear him over the propellers.

Where were the boats? His mouth filled with water and he choked and coughed his lungs clear and tried to begin swimming again, but his legs weren't working and he was getting covered with oil. Everything was heavy, heavy and he was cold all through.

A boat from the destroyer
Volunteer
put out, rowing among the wreckage. At first they collected all the bodies, but then they had too many. They could hardly row and had no room for survivors
.

Finally the ensign who had taken out the boat decided they should collect every body, look into each face and try to see if the man looked alive. His men's hands were too numb with the cold and rowing to feel for a pulse, so they had to go by the look of the seaman's face, if his eyes seemed to see them. What else could they do? If he seemed to be alive, they kept him; if he seemed dead, they looked for his papers and then tossed him back over. When they found David Siegal, he was in shock and in a state of hypothermia. When they let his body slide back in, he landed face in the water
.

Dark in here. Must be in bed. Warmer now. Mama, I can't get my breath. Can anybody hear me? Mama, did you like the cologne? Mama nodded, reaching out for him. She was speaking but at first he could not hear her. She was saying that he should have sent Ruthie a postcard too.

RUTHIE 4

Everybody Needs Somebody to Hate

When Mama let out that geshrei and fell to the floor, Ruthie was sleeping. At first she had no idea what had disturbed her. Then she heard her mother's voice rising again and Sharon's voice beating around her mother's like a little dog, helpless, circling a disaster.

As she stumbled out of bed, her first thought was that something had happened to one of the little ones, and now Mama and Sharon would be in trouble. That was not the tenor of her mother's voice as she homed in on it, following that keening to the living room. It was a cry of grief. Something had happened to Tata? With everybody working six days a week and overtime, with so many inexperienced workers, with the speedup and pressure always growing, accidents happened every day. Ruthie ran.

Rose lay on the floor clutching a telegram. “Who is it?” Ruthie asked, not of her mother but of Sharon. She did not step into the living room, afraid to press forward.

“It's Duvey,” Sharon said, shaking her head as if ridding herself of something loose. “They say it's Duvey,” she repeated, turning to Mama, who lay on the floor pale and gasping. Her eyes stared. She was not weeping but once a minute one of those noises tore from her, the cry of a huge bird, an eagle in extremis. Boston Blackie lay belly to the floor having crept near Mama, terrified. All the little children began to cry.

Ruthie knelt over her mother and tried to hold her, but Rose could not see her, could not respond. In the meantime the children cried louder. Ruthie got up to deal with them. She was still half asleep and stepped on a box of animal crackers Sharon had put down.

Ruthie never got back to bed, which meant that when she finished work, she was dangerously exhausted and had to cut classes. At home, Mama wanted to sit shivah but Sharon and Arty persuaded her they could not suspend the nursery for all the little ones whose mothers couldn't stay home until the period of mourning was past. In truth, as Sharon said privately, it was better for Mama to keep busy with the children or she might collapse.

Three days after Mama had opened the telegram, the bottle of cologne arrived, a birthday present from Duvey.

Ruthie felt confused in her grief. She had not been close to Duvey; she was not sure they could be said to have loved each other since she had turned twelve. She had had trouble seeing Duvey's virtues because, first, Mama had always favored him, and second, he represented the choices that most frightened Ruthie. He had turned to male pals, the quick pleasures, the fast fuse, an edge that needed constant sharpening, toughness and street smarts, women who fell for a Cagney style.

Then too she had not forgiven him for tampering with Naomi. Her anger for that trespass remained like a splinter worked into her palm. She prayed, Let me mourn Duvey. Let me find in myself sorrow for my brother so that I may honestly grieve with Mama. Please, let me find it.

She prayed as she had not prayed since she had feared herself pregnant. She judged herself harshly because she could not achieve an honest mourning for her brother. She could imagine herself devastated by such dreadful news about Murray, and from that she pumped some hypocritical tears, imitation offerings to Mama. Ah, she condemned herself: Ruthie who cried when a stray cat was run over in the street had trouble mourning her own brother.

Morris came to her. “Your mother is keeping that room like a shrine. She goes in there and weeps. Sunday when she goes out to the market, we have to clear it out. For her own good. Give to the poor and clear it out. Three weeks, and every day she cries in there.”

“What will we do with an empty room?”

“Give it to Naomi,” Morris said. “Isn't it time you had your own room? First you shared with Bubeh, now with Naomi. Don't I see how hard you work? You fill in all the cracks, you always have.” He tousled her hair.

Sunday Sharon, Ruthie and Naomi cleaned out Duvey's room. He did not possess a great wardrobe—none of them ever had much to spend on clothes. Here was his blue serge suit, for weddings, bar mitzvahs, graduations and funerals. A drawer full of well-worn shirts and mended underwear. Handling the darned socks released Ruthie's tears. Duvey had large feet for his size and he was always forgetting to cut his toenails. She could see his big toe sticking through his socks.

Marbles, aggies, a penknife, bubble gum wrappers with comics on them, a couple of packages of Trojans, a scrip dollar in which the state had paid teachers during the Depression, a circus program shared a drawer with perhaps forty snapshots of women. Most were taken against somebody's car or against a stoop or the wall of a house, squinting into the sun in a bathing suit on Belle Isle, posed with straw hat in hand in a little Detroit yard by some dusty-looking irises. Most of them were women Ruthie and Sharon had never seen. Some were colored women. The prettiest of all was a woman who had signed a studio portrait of herself in a fancy dress, Love to Duvey my heart of hearts from his Delora.

Sharon was squinting at the photo. Naomi looked over her shoulder. “I think maybe Naomi should leave the room,” Sharon said.

“If I do, you won't get done before Aunt Rose comes home,” Naomi said.

“We need her help,” Ruthie said firmly. She was younger than Sharon, but Sharon always let her make decisions. Married women, Ruthie noticed, sometimes got into that habit until they couldn't decide even minor things. Ruthie considered that Naomi had the right to learn what there was to be learned about Duvey.